Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	contrite_a	humble_a	revive_v	5,567	5	11.6295	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61120	Kaina kai palaia Things new and old, or, A store-house of similies, sentences, allegories, apophthegms, adagies, apologues, divine, morall, politicall, &c. : with their severall applications / collected and observed from the writings and sayings of the learned in all ages to this present by John Spencer ...	Spencer, John, d. 1680.; Fuller, Thomas, (1608-1661)	1658 (1658)	Wing S4960; ESTC R16985	1,028,106	735

continued the same language of Invectives and blasphemies against him The next Sessions being brought again to the barr the Judge asked him If his choler were any thing boyled away and spent but then he redoubled his railings yet he reprieved him again as loath to let him die in so uncharitable and desperate condition of Soul Before the third Assizes he sent for him to his Chamber in London and asked him If he were yet more pacified still nothing came from him but words of in veterate rancour Whereupon said the Judge God forgive thee I do and withall threw him a pardon Whereat he was so astonished that being hardly recovered from a swoon that he fell into he refused the pardon for his life unlesse the Judge would both pardon his Malice and admit him into his service He did so and found him so faithful that dying he gave him the greatest part of his Estate Here now was extream evill overcome with extraordinary goodnesse a conquest without blood the best of all Victories Love overcoming evil with good This is to be like God whose Image we bea● in our Creation and to whose Image we are restored in our Redemption Gods dwelling in the Humble spirit A Gentlewoman of more then ordinary quality and breeding being much troubled in mind and cast down in her Soul with the sad thoughts of spiritual desertion her husband with the assistance of others better experienced in such cases then himself did all that he could by prayers unto God and otherwise by perswasion to reduce her to the knowledge of Gods mercy and goodnesse to her but all in vain she could not be drawn either to hear or read any thing that might work for her spiritual advantage At last her Husband by much importunity prevailed that he might read but one Chapter in the Bible unto her the Chapter was Esay 57. And when he came to the fift●enth V●rse in these words For thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth Eternity wh●se name is Holy I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones O sayes shee Is it so that God dwells with a contrite and humble Spirit then I am sure that he dwells with me For my Heart is broken into a thousand pieces O happy Text and happy time that ever I should hear such comfort and she was thereupon recovered Thus it may be very well concluded that God makes his dwelling in an Humble heart not with him that is proud and high-minded one that looks high and speaketh big words such shall be pulled down from their seats when the lowly and the meek shall be exalted and made a fit habitation for the high and mighty God to dwell in The quietnesse of Contentment THe wheels of the Charriot move but the Axletree stirs not the Circumference of the Heavens is carryed about the Earth but the Earth moves not out of its Center The Sails of a Mill move with the wind but the Mill it self stands still All Emblems of Contentment And thus it is that a Christian is like Noah in the Ark which though tossed with the waters he could sit and sing in it and a Soul that is gotten into the Ark of Contentment sings and sits quietly and sails above all the waves of trouble when it meets with motion and change in the Creatures round about on every side it stirs not nor is moved out of its place When the outward estate moves with the wind of Providence yet the Heart is setled through holy Contentment And when others like Quick silver shake and tremble through disquiet the Contented spirit can say with David O God my heart is fixed my heart is fixed Psal. 57. 7. The most silent Conscience will speak out at last IOhn the Baptist was called the Voice of Christ Vox clamantis the voice of him that cryes in the Wildernesse Herod did cut off his head Now Christ spake not many words to his apprehenders and accusers not many to the high Priest nor to the Judge Pilate but when he came before He●od he spake never a word at all Among other reasons this is wittily given He spake not a word to Herod because Herod had taken away his Voice in beheading Iohn And how should he speak without a voice There may be a voice without speech but no speech without voice Now the tongue of the Soul is Conscience the voice with which she is best acquainted but men for the most part have tongue-tyed their Consciences taken away her voice and who shall controul them yet when God shall un●y those strings and unmuzzle their Consciences she will be heard and ten Consorts of Musick shall not drown her clamorous cryes Now it is that their Conscience is bound and they are loose but in the day of trouble themselves shall be bound and God shall let their Conscience loose It shall be hard for them with that frantick Musician to fall a ●uning their Viols when their house is on fire about their Ears When all the dores are shut up to the Voyces of men Conscience will speak within and that with a language loud enough to be heard easy enough to be understood Excellency of the Soul of man WHen God Almighty had in six dayes made that common-diall of the World the Light that Storehouse of his Justice and his Mercy the Firmament that Ferry of the World the Sea Mans workhouse the Earth Charriots of Light the Sun and Moon the a●ry Choristers the Fowles and Mans s●rvants the Beasts yet had he one more excellent piece to be made and that was Man a Microcosm even an Abstract of the whole to whom having fashioned a body proceeding by degrees of Perfection he lastly created a Soul And as the Family of Matri was singled out of the Tribe of Benjamin and Saul out of the Family of Matri being higher then the rest by the shoulders upwards So is the Soul singled out from the other Creatures far surpassing them all in Excellency whether we consider the efficient cause of its Creation Elohim the blessed Trinity being then in consultation or the material cause a quinta essentia noble and divine substance more excellent then the Heavens or the cause Formall made after the Image of God himself or lastly the cause Finall that it might be the Temple of God and the habitation of his blessed spirit The spirituall benefit of Poverty THe Naturalists such as write concerning the several Climates observe that such as live under the Frozen Zone in the Northern parts of the World if you bring them to the Southward they lose their stomachs and die quickly but those that live in the more Southern hot Climates bring them into the North and their stomachs mend and they are long lived Thus bring a

his pleasure Thus God raiseth up a good Ruler a good Magistrate a good Minister such as are eminent for wisdom exemplary in life these he sets up in a Kingdom in a County in a Parish or Neighbourhood as lights to walk by How then should we improve such opportunities and walk by the light while we have it for the Sun of such examples will set and it is then night in such a Kingdom such a County such a Township such a Family when a good Governour a good Magistrate a good Minister a good Friend Parent or Master is by death removed Discord ill beseemes the Disciples of Christ. ALexander Severus seeing two Christians contending one with another commanded them that they should not take the name of Christians any longer upon them For saies he you dishonour your Master Christ whose Disciples you professe to be Most sure it is that divisions whether of Church or State forraign or domestick are very dishonourable to Christ. And were it that they darkened our names onely it were not so much but that which darkens up the glory of Christ should go something near us The Soule 's comfortable union with Christ. ARtemisia Queen of Caria shewed an act of wonderfull passionate love toward her husband Mausolus for death having taken him away she not knowing how to pull the thorns of sorrow out of her soul caused his body to be reduced to ashes and mingled them in her drink meaning to make her body a living Tomb wherein the reliques of her husband might rest from whom she could not endure to live separated Thus the true child of God when there is any thing that may seem to preserve the memory of God in his soul how doth he embrace the very invention of it he becomes a true Mausolean tomb indeed he hath a comfortable and true conjunction with Christ eating his flesh and drinking his blood and these two can never be separated again False Doctrine is Treason against God AS he is a Traitour to his Prince who taketh upon him to coyn monyes out of a base mettall yea although in the stamp he putteth for a shew the image of the Prince So he that shall broac● any Doctrine that commeth not from God whatsoever he say for it or what g●osse soever he set on it he is a Traitor unto God yea in truth a cursed Traitor though he were an Angel from Heaven Gal. 1. 8. How the Soul lives in Christ onely IT is commonly known that the branches have all their sap from the root of the Tree it is that which makes them flourish and grow but if you cut them off from the root they wither presently So it is with the Spirit with the soul of man if God do but a little withdraw himselfe let sin but make a separation betwixt God and the soul it is like a withered branch it hath nothing of its selfe to revive its selfe because it is divided from the root which is Christ At the least it is with the Soul as it is with a Tree in the dead of winter though the sap remain in the root so though it remain in union with the root yet the moysture is gotten into the root i● self and doth not now infuse it selfe into the branches Yet withall it is confessed that the servant of God which is once united to Christ shall never be separated the union is now and alwaies shall be but neverthelesse the sap and comfort of the Spirit it may remain in the Head our life may be hid in Christ and may not appear in us at all and we are then in that estate as if we were branches cut off so that whatsoever life and comfort and strength of spirit we had it was from Christ and by the influence and working of his gracious Spirit Division amongst Christians is the disgrace of Christians ONe Bidulph in the relation of his travells to Ierusalem reporteth That the Turks were wont to wonder much at our Englishmen for pinking and cutting their cloaths counting them little better then mad-men for making holes in whole cloath which time of it selfe would tear too soon But how foolish and how mad in the eyes of all good Christians do the cuts and the rents and the slashes that are in men's spirits the divisions that are amongst us at this day how uncomely do they render us and the Religion that we take upon us to professe God's Eternity MErchants and Shop-keepers to procure a better sale and greater credit to their severall Stuffs call them Sempiternum Perpetuana Durance c. but how soon doth the moth fret them and they are gon nothing left but the bare name But God he is the true eternall Beeing All Creatures have a lasting Angels have an outlasting but god hath an everlasting Beeing He onely is Alpha and Omega before the beginning and beyond all ending from everlasting to everlasting the King eternall immortall c. Ill company to be avoided WHen Cerinthus came into the Bath Iohn the Evangelist got him out and called to his fellowes that they should come away with haste from the company of that companion lest the house should fall upon them he thought that place was guilty which received a man that was guilty and that the house was in danger which harboured a man obnoxious Here let them then look about them who not onely without all care do sort themselves with all comme●s not fearing the faults of others but are glad they can meet with such companions Vices and vitious persons are alike dangerous He that walketh in the Sun shall be tan'd and he that toucheth pitch shall be defiled and he that associateth himself with the ungodly will soon be tainted with their company That it is lawfull to praise the Dead IT is said of the Aethiopians that they make Sepulchers of glasse for after they have dryed the corps they artificially paint it and set it in a glased coffin that all that passe by may see the whole frame and lineaments of the body and this is commended in them But surely they deserve better of the dead and more benefit of the living who draw the lineaments of their minde and represent their vertues and graces in a Mirrour of Art and Learning And they are as much to blame on the other side that out of the purity of their precise zeal ita praecidunt so neer pare the nails of Romish superstition that they make the fingers bleed who out of fear of praying forsooth for the dead or invocating them are shie in speaking any word for them or sending after them their deserved commendations It is p●ety to honour God in his Saints it is justice suum cuique tribuere to give every one his own it is charity to propose eminent examples of heavenly graces and vertues shining in the dead for the imitation of the living and then you cannot praise

understand him And the other remembring that he was a Minister stood not alwayes upon the pureness of his style but was farre more solicitous of his matter then of his Words Thus as Children use money to jingle with and Men use flowers for sight and scent but Bees for hony and wax not to gild their wings as the butterfly but to fill their Combs and feed their young In like sort there are those that tip their tongues and store their heads some for shew and some for delight but Ministers above all men have these talents in trust that therewith they may save themselves and those that hear them they must condescend to the capacities of their Hearers stoop to the apprehensions of the meanest become all things to all Men in S. Pauls sense that they may win some Hence was that saying of a reverend Bishop Lord send me learning enough that I may preach plain enough The Sinners wilfull blindness condemned THe Lionesse will not company with the Lyon after her commixtion with the Leopard till she wash her selfe in water unwilling that her Adultery should be manifested by her scent And the Viper is so wise that before its copulation with the ●ish Muraena it first vomits and casts out all the pernicious and venemous poyson that is within it But O the wilfull blindnesse of poor sinfull Man by nature more adulterous than the Lionesse more venemous than the Viper going a whoring after every sort of vanity full of hatred and malice suffering strange Lords to tyrannize over him without repugnancy yea and such cowardly Lords that if but resisted would flee from him yet he gives way to them not fearing that his disloyalty shall be perceived and revenged by his Righteous Lord and Master whose patience will at last break out into fury and break him too into a thousand pieces The hasty unexpected death of friends not to be matter of excessive sorrow A Bijah the Prophet meets with Jeroboams wife and tells her that he was sent with heavy news and with that especially Thy childe shall die And which might add the more unto her sorrow Thy childe shall die assoon as thou enterest thy foot into the City so that she could not so much as speak to him or see him alive And it was so which was the occasion of a Nationall mourning there being in him bound up the hopes of all Israel And thus it is that many judge it very heavy tydings to hear of the early untimely deaths of friends and acquaintance that like grapes they should be gathered before they be ripe and as Lambs slain before they be grown But why should they judge so Why take on so with grief and sorrow It is true that Tears are sutable to an house of mourning so that Moderation lends a Napkin to dry up the excess of weeping Consider then that nothing hath befallen them but that which hath done may do and often doth betide the best of Gods dear Children No Man grieves to see his friend come sooner then ordinary more speedily then usually others do to be Rich and Honourable or to see his friend or childe outstrip others in learning and wisdom to have that in a short time which others long labour for Why then should any Man be troubled but rather count it matter of joy when their Children or friends by death obtaine so speedily such a measure of spirituall Riches and such a height of heavenly glory in so short a time besides they have this benefit before those that live longer they are freed from the violence of the Wine-press that others fall into and escape many storms that others are fain to ●ide through Death the meditation thereof profitable to the Souls conversion THere is a story of one that gave a young Gallant a curious Ring with a Deaths head in it upon this condition That for a certain time he should spend one hour every day in looking and thinking of it He took the Ring in wantonnesse but performed the condition with diligence it wrought a wonder on him and of a desperate Ruffian he became a conscionable Christian. It were to be wished that Men of all sorts would more think of death then they do and not make that the farthest end of their thoughts which should alwayes be the nearest thought of their end but to spend some time fixedly every day on the meditation of death and then by Gods grace they would find such an alteration in their lives and conversations that there would be gladnesse in the Church peace in their own souls and joy before the Angels in heaven for their Conversion The great usefulnesse of Scripture-phrase IT is very remarkable how God himself the greatest Master of speech and maker of it too Exod. 4. 11. When he spake from Heaven at the Transfiguration of his Christ our Iesus made use of three severall texts of Scripture in one breath as in Mat. 17. 5. This is my beloved Son Psalm 12. 7. In whom I am well pleased Esay 42. 1. Hear ye him Deut. 18. 15. No doubt but God could have expatiated as he pleased but this may reprove the curious quea●inesse of such nice ones as disdain at the stately plainnesse of the Scripture and to shew of what authority Scripture-phrase is with God Happy then is that man that Minister that can aptly utter his minde in pure Scripture-phrase in that heavenly dialect the language of Canaan It is not the froath of words nor the ostentation of learning though usefull in its time and place nor strong lines that will draw men up to Heaven but strong arguments and convincing ●own-right truths drawn out of the treasury of Gods Word as when a Sermon is full of the ●owells of Scripture so that God and Christ may as it were seem to speak in the Preacher Conversion of a sinner painfully wrought IF a woman cannot be delivered of her child which she hath carried but nine months in her womb without pain and perill of life though she conceived it in great pleasure we must not think then to be delivered of sin which is a man an old man a man that we have carried about in our hearts ever since we were born without any spirituall pain at all The conversion of a sinner is no such easie matter there must be the broken heart the contrite spirit the mourning weed the pale countenance the melting eye and the voyce of lamentation pain for sins past pain for the iniquities of the wicked pain for the abominations of the land and place where they live pain to see the distractions both of Church and State and finally pain for their absence from their heavenly country These are the pangs and throws of the second birth the dolours that attend the conversion of a sinner The Hypocrite characterised THere is mention made of a Beast called

that while upon the Tree Whereupon they both agreed to unite their strength and joyn their forces together the whole-blind Man took the well-sighted-lame Man upon his shoulder and so they reached the Apples and conveyed their Masters fruit away but being impeached for their fault and examined by their Master each one framed his own excuse The blind Man said he could not so much as see the Tree whereon they grew and therefore it was plain he could have none of them And the lame Man said He could not be suspected because he had no limbs to climb or to stand to reach them but the wise Master perceiving the subtle craft of the two false servants put them as they were one upon the others shoulders and so punished them both together Thus it is that Sin is neither of the body without the Soul nor of the Soul without the Body but it is a common act both of Body and soul they are like Simeon and Levi brothers and partners in every mischief like Hippocrates twins they have idem velle et idem nolle they do commonly will and nill the same thing and therefore God in his just Judgment will punish both body and Soul together if they be not repaired and redeemed by Christ. How Christ by his death overcame death IT is said of the Leopard that he useth a kind of policy in killing such Apes as do molest him First he lyeth down as dead and suffereth the Apes to mock him trample upon him and insult over him as much as they will but when he perceiveth them to be weary with leaping and skipping upon him he revives himself on a suddain and with his claws and teeth tears them all in pieces Even so our Saviour Christ suffered the Devill and death and all the wicked Iews like so many Apes to mock him to tread upon him and trample him under foot to crucifie him to bury him to seal up his grave and set a guard of Souldiers to watch him that he should not rise any more and did indeed what they list with him but when he saw they had done their worst and that they could do no more Then he awaked as a Giant out of sleep and smo●e all his Enemies on the cheek-bone spoyl'd Principalities and powers led Captivity captive and brought them unto shame and confusion of face for ever Confession of Sins irk some to the Devill THere is a story how that on a time a Sinner being at Confession the Devill intruded himself and appeared unto him And being demanded by the Priest Wherefore he came in made answer That he came to make Restitution being asked What he would restore He said Shame For it is shame that I have stollen from this Sinner to make him shamelesse in sining and now I am come to restore it to him to make him ashamed to confesse his sins And thus it is that he deals with the most of Men he makes them shamelesse to commit sin even with Absolon in the sight of all Israel and in the sight of the Sun but he makes them ashamed to confesse any sin he perswades them to commit sin and he also perswades them to conceal sin he cannot endure by any means that they should confesse their sins And why but because God is merciful and just to forgive them To depend upon Gods All-sufficiency in time of trouble ABraham considering that God ws El Shaddai a God of All-sufficiency did assure himself that although Sarah's womb was dead yet God was not dead but was as able to raise him a living son out of her dead womb as he is to raise out dead bodies out of the senselesse Earth So Moses when he had six hundred thousand People and upward to provide for in a sandy desart which yielded them neither bread nor water considering the power of God did believe that he could bring drink out of the Rock as out of a River and meat out of the clouds as out of a Cubbard So Ionathan when he went against the Philistins that were thousands had this resolution for his encouragement That God could deliver with few as well as with many And so Asa went as far as he when he had a huge Army of Ethiopians consisting of thousand thousands besides three hundred Chariots the greatest Army that ever was read of come against him he cryed unto the Lord his God and said Lord it is nothing with thee to help whether with many or with them that have no power c. And so it is that every Man should depend upon his God who can help with few Friends or no Friends with small means or no means as well as if he had all the means or all the Friends in the World And therefore let no Man be dismay'd in the time of Affliction nor faint in the hour of temptation but if his troubles be great let him remember that God is greater If his Enemies be mighty let him know that God is mightier then they his hand is of Iron and his feet of burning brasse not onely to tread upon but trample under foot the Enemies of his Church and People Simplicity of Men to be more affected with the losse of things temporal then spiritual IT is said of Honorium a Roman Emperour that when one told him Rome was lost he was exceedingly grieved and cryed out Alas Alas for he supposed it was his Hen so called which he exceedingly loved but when it was told him it was his Imperial City of Rome that was besieged by Alaricus and was taken and all the Citizens rifled and made a prey to the rude enraged Souldier then his Spirits were revived that his los●e was not so great as he imagined Now can it be otherwise thought but that this disposition of Honorius was most simple and childish yet the most of Men are under the same condemnation as being too too much affected with the losse of a poor silly Hen with the deprivation of things temporall nothing at all minding the want of those which are spiritual If they lose a little wealth the least punctilio of Honour a little pleasure a little vanity things of themselves good for nothing because of themselves they can make nothing good and then as the Proverb goeth That is too dear of a farthing that is good for nothing yet for these things they will vex and fret weep and wail and their mourning shall be like that of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddo but when they lose their pretious Souls in the desarts of Sin and God for Sin when they are rifled and strip'd naked of Grace not having the least rag of Christ's Righteousnesse to cover them then with the Israelites they sit down to eat and drink and rise up to play so foolish are they and ignorant even as the beast which perisheth Psalm 49. 20. The sufferings of Christ as so